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What drivers said after the Chase race at Texas Motor Speedway

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Denny Hamlin finishes ninth during the rain-shortened race at Texas and knows that he will be under pressure at Phoenix.

Carl Edwards won the rain-shortened AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway to clinch a spot in the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Here’s what Edwards and the rest of the field had to say Sunday night.

Carl Edwards - Winner: “We were in a bad spot if we went green again, but, like I said, the last run before it rained I think we could’ve held them off. I’m not sure. (Joey Logano) was really good on the bottom. My car was starting to go away. I ran pretty hard there at the start, but man, that’s fun. And, Martin (Truex Jr.) did a great job. If we wouldn’t have beat him off of pit road, obviously, we wouldn’t have got this, but man it was really fun chasing him down and racing with him the run before that.”

Joey Logano - Finished second: “The team did a very good job on executing when we needed to. Just, you know, didn’t have enough laps. It seemed like the momentum swung the other way about three or four laps to go before the caution came out when I started catching the 19 pretty rapidly. Unfortunately it just started raining. That was the end of the race ... You know, it is what it is. We’re going to be close. There’s a lot of cars that are going to be close going into Phoenix. It’s going to be entertaining. It’s going to be probably the closest Phoenix race we’ve ever seen as far as points.”

Martin Truex Jr. - Finished third: “I needed another stop. I needed it to go all the way to the end. We were really good on the long runs. We were really good on new tires after green flag stops. I was really hoping it would go all the way. That was going to be our only chance to win after that last restart. Was hoping it did. Cole (Pearn, crew chief) was telling me how far out the rain was, that he thought. So he was keeping me in the loop on that. I was just like, There’s nothing I can do, I need 20 more laps to even have a chance.”

Chase Elliott - Finished fourth: “You are never happy. Obviously, I thought we had a pretty good car. I don’t know that we had anything for those guys, at least on the short run. If it went real long into a run, I thought we could slightly run with them, given the right track conditions and whatnot. We will do our homework and get ready for the next two.”

Kyle Busch - Finished fifth “That was a hard-fought top five right there. That was a battle for sure by myself behind the wheel, but, of course, my pit crew did a great job being able to get the tape on the nose and being able to fix that earlier in the race. And, of course, (crew chief) Adam (Stevens), some great calls being able to fix that car. It was a handful for sure early on, but we made it a heck of a lot better there at the end. I just wish that those long runs were actually real long runs. We had so many sets of tires tonight that everybody was short-pitting the long runs and only running 40 laps instead of what a fuel window was, about 55 laps. So, I couldn’t make up the time that I wanted to on the long runs against those guys.”

Kevin Harvick - Finished sixth: “Our Busch Beer Chevy was off. We were tight, we were loose, and we were kind of all over the place. We could take off okay, but we would fall way off at the end of a run. I just want to apologize to (Austin Dillon). He kind of came up there and he slid in front of me and got loose and when he checked up I hit him again. That was not anything I wanted to see. All-in-all everybody battled and did all they could, and we just didn’t have a fast enough car.”

Matt Kenseth - Finished seventh: “We were just kind of middle of the road. We qualified decent, we kept that track position. Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) did a good job. One time we pitted early and got a few spots and got up to fifth but then we just got behind on the second-to-last pit stop and when I get behind people we were just kind of mediocre. I just couldn’t really pass anybody but if you put me in line in fifth I could run fifth. Unfortunately a couple of those guys got in front of me and I couldn’t get back around them. So, we had a good stop our last one, had a good restart and got a couple spots but that was about all I could get.”

Kasey Kahne - Finished eighth: “We drove up, the team did a great job, the pit stops were nice, but we just never had the speed I wanted that those probably five or six guys had. We had a great performance from 33rd to eighth and we battled all night long. Everybody worked hard we just want to be a little better.”

Denny Hamlin - Finished ninth: “I think the hardest thing is we lost our pit selection and we kept getting blocked in by (Alex Bowman) each stop. He had to try to get out as well from whoever was in front of him. Just a bad part of losing your pit selection, you don’t get a good spot and I thought he was a little bit wide a few stops and it really slowed our stops and lose positions on pit road where we usually gain and then I was on the outside just about every restart. Nothing really went well for us on pit road, average day.”

Ryan Newman -Finished 10th: “Our Grainger Chevrolet was a real challenge for us tonight. It pushed when I was in traffic and was loose off of Turn 4. We basically ran in the top 18 all day. (Crew chief ) Luke (Lambert) made a series of calls and by halfway, our car ran the best in the high line and that’s pretty much where I raced. Then we heard weather was coming and when it did, we stayed out and got the top-10 finish. I’m proud of the guys on pit road for the solid performance. It was a long rain delay, but we all hung in there and got a good finish.”

Jimmie Johnson - Finished 11th: “It didn’t quite go as planned. We were planning on a day race and the setup of the car was not so happy at night. We were making gains on it and getting there, but a little too loose with it being a night race.”

Alex Bowman - Finished 13th: “We took off really strong and had a really good first run. The second run we didn’t get a great restart but we were fast and passing people and cut a right-front tire. We had some right-front damage and feel like that kind of killed the front-end aero wise a little bit for the rest of the day. We kind of really fought just balance, really never got the race car happy, and kind of was out of the racetrack with front and the back. But, Greg (Ives, crew chief) and everybody tried really hard. We were a heck of a lot better than 13th, just frustrating couple of restarts, got raced kind of ridiculously by some guys.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - Finished 16th: “Our Fastenal Ford was probably the best it had been all weekend. We progressively made it better each run. I wish it would have gone back green because we had new tires and I think we could have gained some more positions there at the end. Overall it was a good day for our Fastenal team.”

AJ Allmendinger - Finished 17th: “This place confuses me for sure. I felt like I needed a little bit more rear grip, but if we tried that we got way too tight. When we got tight I was really slow and really unhappy with it. We would free it back up and I would have to kind of hang on to it, but it was faster. For how we have been here that is way better. I’ve got to still do my homework going into next year about this place and figure it out.”

Kurt Busch - Finished 20th: “We just missed the setup. It’s a Chase race, it’s kind of important and we missed it again.”

Paul Menard - Finished 27th: “The rain from earlier cleaned off the track and there was no rubber at the beginning of the race. It took awhile for grip to come in, so we worked through that with adjustments on pit road. (Crew chief) Danny (Stockman) made good calls to get us where we needed to be but then we had a tire go down. That put us behind for the rest of the night. Proud of my team as always for not giving up.”

Trevor Bayne - Finished 30th: “We fought all race long. Our AdvoCare Ford just struggled to find the right handling all night which made it really tough out there. We’ll regroup from this and get after it in the last two races of the season and end this year on a strong note.”

Austin Dillon - Finished 37th: "(Kevin Harvick) tucked down to my door tighter than anybody did all night. He knew how tight he was on my door and that is why I got tight and slid up in front of him. He didn’t check (up), but he had the opportunity to. He didn’t like it that the silver spoon kid was out-running him tonight. So we will be alright, we have two weeks left and we just want to come out and win a race.”

Casey Mears - Finished 39th: “I’m fine. I didn’t even hit anything but the grass. I don’t know who, somebody hit me from behind. When they checked up, I had to check up because the guys in front of me where trying to peel off the wall to keep from hitting the No. 3 (Austin Dillon). I felt whoever was behind me put me in the grass. I hit the grass and it blew the whole front end off the car. It is unfortunate because we really didn’t hit anything other than the grass, but it ended our night.”

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